Can Russ put VALUABLE Back into Most Valuable Player?

(Photo's via Cavaliers & Thunder Twitter Pages)

Let’s get to the etymology, shall we?

Valere – to “be strong, be well; be of value, be worth” in Latin.

Most Valuable Player. Valuable. What should we qualify as value in basketball? How should we quantify value in forms of basketball stats? How should we rank value relative to each other?

Of course, there is no answer that you can point to and say “Aha! That is what I’m looking for.” Otherwise, we would not be having this debate of who should be NBA’s MVP.

Currently, there are four players in solid contention for this prestigious award: Lebron James of Cleveland, Kawhi Leonard of San Antonio, James Harden of Houston, and Russell Westbrook of Oklahoma City. Isaiah Thomas and John Wall might say otherwise, but I will focus on the four most circulated names for the article’s sake.

As it stands, the Cavs are 1st in the Eastern Conference at 42-40, Spurs 2nd in the Western Conference at 50-13, Houston 3rd in WC at 44-21, and Thunder 7th in WC at 35-29. Westbrook’s Thunder has by far the worst record, while Leonard’s Spurs are having the good life.

Their individual statistics are shown below, courtesy of NBA.com:

You can see already that there is something funny going on here: Westbrook played fewer minutes than James or Harden did, and has an ugly FG%, yet he has the highest efficiency rating out of all four—and of the entire league.

The skeptics may dismiss this anomaly as Westbrook stat-padding his way through the season, and will point to the mediocre record as justification. He may have the stats, but he doesn’t have the wins to show for it.

However, to me, Westbrook is the undisputed MVP of the season. Westbrook is the most valuable player to the Thunder AND the NBA. The NBA part is pretty clear—just look at his stats. The other part of the equation becomes painfully obvious under a very simple perspective: compare the teams without their MVP candidates.

Let’s look at Cleveland.

Take away Lebron, and who do you have? You still have fellow All-Star PG Kyrie Irving and PF Kevin Love who definitely have the abilities to lead the team to almost equivalent glory, and great role players, like bucket swisher J.R. Smith, 3-Pt specialist Kyle Korver, paint poacher Tristan Thompson, Channing Frye, Iman Shumpert among others. Take away Lebron, and this team will still be in running for the top spot of the Eastern Conference, and is still a force to be reckoned with in the league. Lebron’s impact factor is not like that of his 2006 season where he willed the team to a Finals appearance, nor of his Miami Heat years, where he was as dominating as they come in the league. It has diminished. He is still the King, but his kingdom is slowly being reduced.

How about San Antonio? Take away Kawhi, and what are you left with? I can almost guarantee you that Popovich will make things go as smoothly as they have been through most of his reign. Popovich’s system will always minimize the impact factor of players in exchange for the greater good. Kawhi may have blossomed into a fantastic two-way player, and is certainly deserving of MVP talk, but his loss will not decimate San Antonio, and the dent made will be small. Lamarcus Aldridge, I mind you, was a double-double machine garnering MVP talks himself in his Portland days. Pau Gasol still gives forth quality after quality outing. Up-and-coming players like Dejounte Murray and Kyle Anderson, and seasoned vets with championship pedigrees in Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Patty Mills, Danny Green, and David Lee will find ways to mitigate the loss. This squad, even without Kawhi, has been championship caliber, and will be championship caliber under Popovich, and that is a guarantee year in and year out.

What of Houston? Surely taking away Harden will be too much to overcome, right? Not so fast there. If you take away Harden, D’Antoni has even more freedom to run his run-and-gun, “7-second” distribution offense that has been a near-perfect fit for the Rockets this season. Harden’s production lost can be recovered by the even stronger core with the acquisition of Lou Williams from the Lakers. Trevor Ariza, Eric Gordon, Ryan Anderson, Lou Williams, and Sam Dekker can step up and take more chances for themselves. Patrick Beverley can take on the role of the pick-and-roll facilitator with Capela and Harrell at the receiving end in the paint, who are all very capable players. They may lose the dynamic, unpredictable impact that Harden brings to the table, but they gain ball distribution, unselfish play, and playstyle that is even more epitome of D’Antoni’s philosophy. They will still be playoff bound in the West, and still quite dangerous with the untapped potential of the core outside of Harden lurking in the corner.

Now we turn to Oklahoma City. Take away Westbrook. The sight is ghastly. Even after they traded for Taj Gibson and Doug McDermott, this roster is extremely thin on talent and consistency. Victor Oladipo relies on rhythm for things to go his way, and more often than not, his rhythm is nowhere to be seen on the court. Enes Kanter and Steven Adams are nice big men—but they are exclusively role players who feed off of grubs in the paint. Roberson, McDermott, Gibson, and Sabonis round out the “core”—all are in lower-echelons of playing time in deeper teams like Houston, Cleveland, and San Antonio. His stats make sense now: he’s got to do everything. He’s got to be the scorer, the facilitator, the board-grabber, the high energy guy, the clutch shooter, and the leader of this team at the same time. A tall order to ask of any one guy, and he is excelling at all those roles given the circumstances. Take away Westbrook, and this team is nowhere near playoff bound, this team is solidly in the lottery.

Feels familiar? If you’re a Heat fan like I am, then it is etched in your memory. Much of media and fans lament that Dwyane Wade was not given his due credit for his monstrous 2008-2009 campaign, when he put up 30.2 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 7.5 APG with .491% FGP in 38.6 MPG, led his team to a 5th seed, and took the Hawks to 7 games before being eliminated. He only received 7 first place votes, and Lebron James won the MVP that season. Wade’s situation was eerily similar to Westbrook’s, as he was an one-man wrecking crew for the Heat with a very poor and unexperienced cast, outside of co-captain Udonis Haslem, of rookies Michael Beasley and Mario Chalmers, limited role-players in Daquan Cook, Dorell Wright, and Joel Anthony, and fading veterans like Jason Richardson, Jermaine O’Neal, and Jamal Magloire. If the list of unfamiliar names was not enough evidence, they only won 17 games during the previous season when Wade was nagged by multiple injuries and missed a good chunk of the season. Want another one? Then how about the 2004-2005 campaign that Shaw had, who lost the MVP award to Steve Nash despite the stats and playoff records saying otherwise? (Fellow Heat fans, I am sorry for triggering you once more)

Tying back to this season’s MVP race, the Thunder does not make Westbrook, as San Antonio does with Leonard, Houston with Harden, and Cleveland with James, to some extent. Westbrook makes Thunder. Westbrook is Thunder’s heart and soul. Westbrook has kicked and dragged his team, against all odds, into a playoff spot. Westbrook gives Valuable its meaning back in Most Valuable Player. He is the candidate who deserves this distinction by far.

But history does not look favorable to Westbrook’s cause. And I am afraid that the voters will fail to recognize what the trophy truly stands for once again.